The unexpected benefit was that I now had witnesses for my experience. People I cared for saw what had happened to me. I was no longer alone in that realm—and I was safe. Mixed in with the embarrassment was a tremendous sense of relief. By showing my vulnerability, I was unwittingly exercising my resilience muscle.
the power of support groups
We are social animals. We need each other for our very survival. Nowhere is this more evident than in concentration camps, in military compounds, in dens of slavery, in repressed regimes, where prisoners will use every ounce of their human ingenuity to get messages to each other to ease their loneliness and despair and share their suffering. Communication, their only possible form of connection, gave them the strength to survive. Stories have been told and studies generated that show our pure genius for making contact, even in the most extreme of situations. The creating of Morse codes, the banging of objects on the ground, the singing of spirituals, the call of whistles—whatever it takes to remind us that we are not alone.
Often what we need most in upsetting or threatening situations is a way to compare our emotional experiences with others. We need to hear that other people share our feelings, that our emotional reactions to terrible times and our feelings of having reached our limit are normal, not a sign that we are pathologically weak.
Of course we don't have to be political prisoners to understand this need for validation and support. A woman I work with lived with debilitating anxiety because she felt ambivalent about having children. Living in a culture that places such a high value on motherhood and maternal sacrifices, she felt sure she was a freak for not being sure if she wanted children. We were both delighted when she found a workshop for women who wanted to discuss this issue in safety and confidentiality. After attending the workshop, Roberta returned to my office visibly lighter, relaxed and smiling. The weekend was a success; she met several other women she respected and learned from, and she felt fully engaged in all the exercises. She loved the free time to talk between sessions and over lunch. She had time to think and reflect, time to tell others how she felt, and time to hear other stories. She left feeling a great relief, not because she had made up her mind about having children but because she felt peaceful about being ambivalent. She was not alone in her distress, and she could now trust herself and the process of working it out over time.
Finding group support doesn't necessarily come through organized workshops. In the middle of winter I was invited to celebrate my friend Cindy Walker's sixtieth birthday. The invitation announced that the “queens” would be arriving: dress would be evening wear (tiaras acceptable), and we were to come prepared to spend the whole evening; there would be no early leave-taking.
And so, seventy-five women from all over the United States descended on a sparkling, snow-covered Salt Lake City, Utah, ready to celebrate our friend Cindy. Here we were: friends of hers from kindergarten, her bridesmaids from umpteen years ago, a friend she had met as an exchange student in Poland, her daughters and daughters-in-law, her women doctors, her neighbors, friends from her book clubs and church groups, every woman friend with whom she has stayed in contact through countless moves around the states.
Cindy is a no-nonsense woman; one could even say she's a force to be reckoned with. She is passionate and outspoken and accomplished and considers it frivolous to be concerned with appearance. So imagine our surprise when we discovered that she had hired a woman to come to her home the day before her party to offer manicures and pedicures to her family and friends. She not only was the first to have her nails done, but she had her makeup done as well! She was turning sixty, and she decided was going to do something for herself she had never done before.
Cindy had planned a sumptuous feast and a singing revival of her favorite songs. After she presented a carnation and story about each woman in the room, she had me say a few words about resilience. For obvious reasons, I chose to emphasize friends and support and helping each other through rough times. I talked about this group and how we were an embodiment of a spontaneous support group, how every one of us was connected to this amazing woman, every one of us called her a friend and meant it from the heart.
I then asked the women in the room to share their thoughts about why Cindy was their friend. (This was not on Cindy's agenda; she told me later how stunned she was—and how much she surprised herself by not putting a stop to it!)
One of the first people to get up was Cindy's daughter Kathy, who told a story about standing in the receiving line at her wedding, when her new husband leaned over and whispered, “Everyone your mother introduces me to says they are her very best friend!” Kathy then looked around the room and said the same thing to us that she had said to her new husband that day. “They are!”
Jeannine, Cindy's daughter-in-law, stood and said, “Cindy, I will never forget one of our first heart-to-heart talks when I joined your family. You told me that if Aaron and I had an argument and he came to you with his complaints you would not automatically take his side. You would give me the respect to include my point of view as well. That has meant the world to me because I knew then that I could trust you.”
The stories went on, leaving us all crying, laughing, ooohing and aaahing. Eight hours later, the police called looking for an elderly woman who was attending the party. “She is never out this late,” her husband had told the police when he called, worried that something had happened to her. We all went home with tremendous smiles on our faces and warmth in our hearts.
Cindy still talks about how the evening was the single most important healing experience of her life:
Ever since that night I feel okay in a way I have not felt before. I don't have to measure up; I am okay as I am. I sincerely believe I could not have accepted the teacher of the year award with such dignity and confidence if I did not have the reminder of my dear friends' love and respect.
I have always been quick to turn the attention and care to others; if I had not been forced to do otherwise that night I would not have heard and felt how much people cared for me. Seventy-five people cannot be wrong. I know how deeply I feel for everyone who was in my home that night; hearing and believing how much they care for me was profoundly and lastingly healing.
The power of that connection for Cindy allowed her to stand tall and resilient when she next had to face, for her, the awkward and difficult situation of accepting the teacher of the year award. Rather than convincing herself she did not deserve such recognition, she could rely on the genuine response she had received from her “closest” friends.
our health depends on it
It turns out that having the support of a group doesn't just feel good; it is, empirically, good for us, especially during stressful times. As we learn more and more about the connection between mind and body, we are also becoming aware of the link between illness and social isolation. When people in stressful situations do not have someone in whom to confide, their immune response apparently weakens. In James Pennebaker's study of 2,000 people who had suffered trauma, including physical abuse, rape, or the death of a loved one, those who managed to confide in someone about the event were found to be healthier. Those who hadn't discussed their experiences developed more illness of various sorts—from headaches to lung disease.
We have discovered that when stress is high, people without psychological support suffer as much as ten times the incidence of physical and emotional illness as do those who are able to get such support. As I was preparing this chapter, in fact, a new study from Yale came to the public's attention. Lisa Berkman, a public health specialist from Yale, monitored 200 older men and women who had suffered heart attacks. She found that those with the most support from others lived the longest after the attack. Dr. Berkman explains that emotional support contributes to healing for physical reasons, “If you feel like you have emotional support, you may be less stressed. Your blood pressure doesn't shoot up, and your heart doesn't race.” The comfort and solace of connection makes a difference.
Whether our connection is to lots of people, to family members, to a very special person, to nature and